


nothing but stars falling

by Belgium



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M, witches! magic! stargazing!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-09-26 22:48:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17150543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belgium/pseuds/Belgium
Summary: Renjun’s gaze flickered up from Donghyuck's neck and followed the plane of his left cheek, tracing his beauty marks, and Renjun breathed, a revelation, “Oh. You have Ursa Minor on your skin.”





	nothing but stars falling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smallchittaphon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallchittaphon/gifts).



> i've always wanted to do witchy dreamies so this was really fun to write! i hope that it was okay to take so many liberties with your prompt but i hope you enjoy anyway!!!

Renjun moved in next door on the Sunday before the first day of senior year, although getting his name out of him was like pulling out a baby tooth that wouldn’t quite budge. Donghyuck couldn’t fight biology—he was born a nosey old witch and was practically predestined to beeline to the rail-thin stranger, who had been standing in what was once Yerim’s mom’s garden with an enormous cardboard box in his arms and a sunflower tucked behind his ear that offset the gloomy fall morning.

“Hi,” said Donghyuck, armed with his brightest smile. “Who are you?”

Renjun had not looked impressed, and Donghyuck had the impression that he would’ve crossed his arms had it not been for the box. “Who are _you_?” he lobbied back.

“Donghyuck,” answered Donghyuck.

“My mom told me not to talk to strangers,” Renjun said, fiddling with the sunflower, as if he were attempting to shield himself from Donghyuck.

“Don’t be silly,” said Donghyuck. “You know my name now, so I’m not _really_ a stranger. And besides, doesn’t everybody start off as strangers?”

“Not if you’re a mind reader,” reasoned Renjun.

There was no way anyone could discern what someone else was thinking—Donghyuck had tried multiple times before on Jeno, to no avail. He had succeeded once, although it turned out that Jeno really did only think about his cats and Fortnite, and Donghyuck had had a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right.

Mind readers simply didn’t exist. This Donghyuck had come to know after years of flipping through weathered old spell books, and anyone claiming to be one just excelled at cold reading people. He wasn’t sure how to spin that piece of information into the conversation with a skeptic—and Renjun _was_ a skeptic, that was for sure—without sounding completely off his rocker, though, and instead pointed at the box and asked, “What’s that?”

The box, to his surprise, wriggled. 

Renjun swatted the side of the box with his open palm and hissed, “ _Jwi_!”

Donghyuck taunted with a mystery was worse than a poorly trained golden retriever provoked by an open drawer of old socks. “What’s in the box?” he demanded, perhaps too excitedly. “What’s Jwi?” He paused, then took a shot in the dark. “ _Who’s_ Jwi?”

Renjun frowned at the last question and gestured to the garden around him. “Isn’t this _my_ house? How are you going to come over to my territory and have the nerve to ask me all these intrusive questions? Don’t people have any respect for privacy these days?”

“ _Mrrrrow_ ,” meowed the box, almost as if in agreement.

Though he had checked out and read _Mantras for Modern Witches_ cover to cover upwards of twenty times in the last few years, Donghyuck didn’t know that one could enchant a box into taking on the personality of a cat. It was fascinating to see the box wriggle (exactly like how a cat would wriggle!) in Renjun’s arms. Just his luck that his new neighbor was a witch, too—and much more seasoned one, at that. Donghyuck couldn’t even balance his chakras with the crystals he got gotten from Urban Outfitters with Yerim during their wild spring break together. Fellow witch Yerim and her family had moved after she went to college, and Donghyuck was going to miss their unparalleled combined collection of quartzes.

“How did you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“You’re a witch, aren’t you!”

Renjun stared at him, mouth twisted in a half-frown. “Why on earth would you think that I’m a _witch_?”

Donghyuck deflated. “Well, how did you turn your box into a cat, then?”

The box meowed again, almost as if smug, and Renjun snorted. He set the box down, opened the top flaps, and proceeded to pull out the biggest, fluffiest, grumpiest-looking cat Donghyuck had ever laid eyes on. The cat was blacker than a starless sky, eyes oddly illuminated, even though it had been heavily overcast all week. He scrambled onto Renjun’s shoulders but bumped face-first into the sunflower still behind Renjun’s ear, and his nose twitched violently before sneezing.

“Bless you, Jisung,” intoned Renjun. “Jwi, for short,” he offered to Donghyuck, paused, then agonized internally for a moment before hesitantly holding a hand out. “I’m Renjun.”

“Renjun,” Donghyuck repeated before shaking his hand.

Renjun pulled his hand away. “Don’t wear it out,” he chided dryly. “Names have power.” At Donghyuck’s lit up face, he clarified, “It was a joke. Witches aren’t real. And name magic is just straight up silly.” Jisung, curled around Renjun’s nape like a scarf, yowled. “You can’t believe that chanting Bloody Mary into a mirror at midnight is real,” Renjun chided, although Donghyuck was unsure if he was talking to him or the cat.

It was at this moment Donghyuck vowed that he would show Renjun the light eventually. Or the dark, if Renjun was into that. Donghyuck hoped not. He and Yerim had been a little too wary to dabble the dark arts, and Donghyuck really wasn’t keen on staring at bird entrails or accidentally summoning Satan or whatever.

For now, though, Donghyuck simply slipped a hand into his pocket and took out the bouquet of meadowsweet he had gathered for his new neighbor, holding it out for Renjun to take. “This is for you,” he said. “Think of it as a housewarming present.”

Renjun’s stance softened. Even Jisung seemed to cheer up, soft purrs filling the air, and Renjun took the bouquet and held it close to his heart. It grazed Jisung’s nose, and the residual pollen caused the cat to sneeze once more.

“Does your cat have hay fever?”

“Sure. He has a delicate constitution,” Renjun replied and reached around his head to give the cat a firm pat on the flank. “I have to go unpack the rest of my stuff, but thanks for the flowers. They’re really pretty.”

With a surprisingly endearing crooked grin, Renjun and the cat fled from the garden, and Donghyuck was left wondering when exactly had the impermeable clouds gone away, if sunshine had always felt this soft and lovely everyday.

 

*

 

What Renjun didn’t know was that the bouquet of meadowsweet Donghyuck had gifted him was infused with a powerful good luck spell—he would need it, especially for the first day of school. Moving was hard but moving just before senior year sounded brutal, and, contrary to what Jeno and Jaemin chose to believe, Donghyuck was a nice, thoughtful, _considerate_ person.

What _Donghyuck_ didn’t know was that he had been wrong and Renjun didn’t need luck at all—or maybe his spell had worked and Donghyuck was the best witch ever in all of history. Regardless, he had integrated seamlessly into Donghyuck’s friend group, and they frequently teamed up to torment Jeno and Jaemin together, who, most of the time, didn’t even do anything to deserve it.

“They must’ve USPS priority shipped you directly from Hell,” Jeno had complained after Renjun had called him handsome and boring during lunch—handsome, because he was, and boring, because, well, he was, but additionally, he had packed the same lunch of turkey and swiss on a whole wheat roll and carrot sticks every single day that week.

“It’s a compliment,” Renjun said, though that was dubious. “Don’t be shy, Jeno. Just accept it.”

“Injun is right, Jeno. You _are_ handsome and boring. The whole package!” cheered Jaemin.

“Injun has usurped your throne of being the most evil,” Jeno said to Donghyuck.

At Renjun’s inquiring look, Donghyuck bragged, “I turned six years old on 6/6/06.” Most people would probably not brag about this, but Donghyuck was not most people, and he wore that shocking fact like a badge of pride.

For someone who resolutely did not believe in magic, Renjun choked on his banana milk from surprise. Donghyuck, who had been sitting next to him, patted his back a few times. Hand lingering, he discreetly traced a rune for calm on Renjun’s neck, close enough to his hairline that it could’ve been mistaken for an affectionate hair scratch. Instantly, Renjun’s diaphragm returned to normal, and lunch proceeded without another hitch.

Donghyuck had taken it upon himself to become Renjun’s keeper. A guardian angel, or sorts, only this guardian angel practiced spells and observed obscure pagan holidays as an excuse to buy cake and brewed herbal tinctures that tasted a bit like very flowery, slightly weedy kombucha. Donghyuck tried to tell himself that he was only paying it forward since Yerim had taken him under her arm when _he_ had been the new neighbor, but deep down he knew it was different.

On the day Renjun was accepted into their school’s semi-selective art club, it had been Donghyuck who had slipped a pressed gingko leaf into Renjun’s pocket that morning, infused with a spell that helped popularity. When Renjun had agonized for weeks leading up to his world history presentation, Donghyuck had sown summer snowflakes, flowers that fortified memory, into an amulet and slipped it into Renjun’s locker, and Renjun had scored an A. 

The only thing Donghyuck couldn’t do was control the weather, so not even he could prevent the downpour on their last track meet of the season, but he had drawn on sun runes on the soles of Renjun’s shoes in a valiant effort anyway as wishful thinking. Maybe the Sharpies were defective. He would have to consult Yerim about it over FaceTime later.

Still, an entire semester had flown by with Renjun getting no closer to believing that witches were real, despite being friends with someone who wasn’t shy about proclaiming at every opportunity just how witchy he was. 

Donghyuck surprised himself by being fine with Renjun’s continued skepticism. The thrilling secrecy of tailoring spells specifically for Renjun had somehow become integrated into Donghyuck’s daily routine. The two-and-a-half weeks that Renjun was gone for winter break were the drabbest days of Donghyuck’s life; he was growing antsy and restless. And maybe it was the stress of senior year finally getting to him, but it seemed like the days were quite literally grayer without his neighbor.

“Is this even healthy?” Jeno had questioned when they gathered one weekend to stuff themselves with holiday sweets and watch daytime reality TV until their brains oozed out of their ears.

“The brownies?” Donghyuck asked. “No, they’re terrible for you.”

“I mean your pining.” Jeno said, though he was undeterred from taking another enormous bite out of the brownie. “We’ve only been friends for like, four months.”

“Absolutely,” answered Jaemin for Donghyuck. Jaemin was a bit of an old-school romantic. “Pining is just part of the process. A natural part of life. Like how salmon swim upstream or whatever.”

“I am not pining,” Donghyuck protested half-heartedly. “I’m not a Christmas tree.” He paused. “And salmon _die_ once they get upstream, Jaemin.”

Jaemin shrugged, figuring that he made his point.

“Cute,” quipped Jeno. “How long have you been sitting on that tree joke?”

“You’re _wilting_ without Injun,” Jaemin pointed out, stealing the rest of Jeno’s brownie, voice taking on a dramatic lilt. “You’re a wilting pine tree and he’s like, your _sunshine_ , and you can’t _live_ without him.”

“Yeah, you’re _wilting_ ,” parroted Jeno, eyes crinkling into crescents. “Why don’t you spirit him away back from vacation?”

“Ha ha,” intoned Donghyuck tonelessly. “Magic isn’t like that.” Secretly, though, he wished it were. He did miss his neighbor and his ill-behaved demon cat.

Renjun, as it turned out, did not really miss Donghyuck back. Or, at least, he claimed so, but it left him no way to explain why he had brought back horrifying ugly figurines of the three wise monkeys from China for him.

“They look kind of like you,” Renjun mumbled, roughly shoving them into Donghyuck’s hands. Jwi trilled smugly at their feet, his bushy tail swishing back and forth, hitting both of them intermittently in the shins. “I hope they’re suitably witchy enough.”

“Are you calling me ugly, Injun?” Donghyuck demanded, inspecting the figurines closer. The hear-no-evil monkey’s eyes were peeling off and the see-no-evil monkey had an unfortunate case of boils. Speak-no-evil was visibly fine for now, but who knew what horrors lied underneath the paint. “Are you saying I have boils?”

Renjun hummed thoughtfully. “Aren’t witches supposed to have boils and stuff? When are yours coming in? Or is that what happens when you go through witch puberty?”

Donghyuck shoved his arm lightly. “That’s a cartoon witch. I’m a _real_ witch.”

Renjun rolled his eyes, but the effect was ruined by his uneven but bright grin. “Yeah, yeah, okay. You’re a real witch, Hyuck.”

 

*

 

On the first day of second semester, Renjun and Donghyuck walked into the same astronomy class, both having forgotten that they both had it on their schedules. Upon laying eyes on him, Renjun had paled immediately, made to turn back around and walk out the class, thought better of it, gave up, and reluctantly slunk into the only open seat next to Donghyuck’s.

“Do I smell or something?” Donghyuck teased. “Or are you just really not into horoscopes?”

Renjun’s eyebrows furrowed together out of confusion. “Sorry?”

“Horoscopes,” Donghyuck repeated, pulling out the calendar page in his school agenda. “This is astrology class. When’s your birthday again?”

“March 23rd,” Renjun answered, looking a bit faint. “Do you mean astronomy?”

Donghyuck stared at Renjun, whose expression was somewhere in between laughter and a frown. “I guess I could work with an Aries,” he conceded after consulting his calendar, conveniently demarcated with the dates of each sign. “And that’s what I said—astrology.”

Renjun laughed when the bell rang and their teacher walked in through the door. “I’m not sure if you’re going to like what you’re about to hear, then.”

He was right, although Donghyuck probably should’ve known beforehand that no accredited public school worth its salt would offer a class on—what, the implication of one’s rising sign? Observing and calculating which planet was in retrograde? Inputting a birth place and time into an online birth chart generator? Jeno, who was the only one out of them with at least half a brain, _had_ looked at Donghyuck funnily with concern when he had expressed maybe too much enthusiasm for the semester to begin, but Donghyuck just figured it was Jeno being no fun, as he was wont to be.

As the class played a boring icebreaker game, Donghyuck flipped ahead in the syllabus to take a peak at the class units. It was comprised of the usual introductory classes, some basic history, a bit of math and physics, but both the midterm and final project were observing and charting stars at night for themselves.

Donghyuck nudged Renjun’s side and whispered, “Hey.”

“Shut up,” whispered Renjun back and shoved him twice as hard. “I’m waiting to hear Felix’s icebreaker.”

“Oh,” said Donghyuck. “What was the game again?”

Renjun rolled his eyes. “Say a vegetable with that starts with the same first letter as your name. The anticipation of what he’s going to come up with for F is killing me.”

“Fuck,” swore Donghyuck. “What’s a vegetable that starts with D?”

“Daikon?” Renjun suggested. “For a witch—” he formed air quotes with his fingers here “—you’re pretty bad at knowing vegetables.”

“Shut up,” hissed Donghyuck, but brightened. “Hey, daikon radish! I’ll do daikon, you do radish. We can be matching.” At Renjun’s hushed, huffed laughter, Donghyuck remembered why he interrupted the icebreaker in the first place. “Partner up with me for the midterm.”

“Yes, your highness.”

“And the final project, too,” he added in a sing-song.

Renjun smiled. “Fine, fine. It’s your turn next, by the way.”

Donghyuck snapped his head to turn to the teacher, feigning interest. “D, Donghyuck, daikon,” he rattled off like a machine gun, though he was sure that he had the format all wrong, then turned back to doodling Gemini and Aries constellations in the margins of his copy of the syllabus.

“Radish Renjun,” Renjun recited faithfully, to Donghyuck’s pleasure. 

Much later, icebreakers over with and syllabus introduced, when they were walking through the hall to their next classes, Donghyuck asked, “So, what did Felix end up saying for F?” 

Renjun didn’t reply right away. Maybe it was merely a trick of the light, a stray sunbeam filtering into the room, but Donghyuck could’ve sworn that Renjun’s gaze flickered down to his mouth before he shrugged ruefully and said, “I don’t know. I don’t remember.” _I wasn’t paying attention_ , Donghyuck parsed from what he hadn’t said. Or maybe more accurately, this: _I was paying more attention to you_.

 

*

 

It was unfortunate that Jeno was the one who had a class with Renjun, as he had nothing important to report when Donghyuck interrogated him on what Renjun was like as a partner in a group project. “First of all,” Jeno had said, “we don’t have group projects in calc. But I guess he’s helpful when we’re doing warmups and I get stuck on a question.”

“To be clear, this was not helpful at all,” Donghyuck had said.

“I said _he_ was the helpful one, not me,” whined Jeno. To be fair, Jeno had answered his question to the best of his ability, so Donghyuck couldn’t exactly fault him.

The problem was that—well, Donghyuck couldn’t pin down what exactly his problem was. He liked Renjun, even though they seemed to have differing beliefs. His neighbor was more preoccupied with avoiding ghosts at all times (pointless, since ghosts weren’t real) while ignoring the very real and incredibly valid application and channeling of magic. Something else Donghyuck realized about a few weeks into astrology was that Renjun wholeheartedly believed in aliens, although it was in the boring and arguably valid ancient space algae micro-organism way and not in the slightly more exciting but also definitely more horrifying Martian invader way.

“Jwi has taught me that even the smallest life form is capable of deep torment and mass destruction,” Renjun had explained after they got to the chapter about finding evidence of water on Mars.

“True,” agreed Donghyuck. “Forget you being the second coming of Lucifer, I’m pretty sure your cat is Satan reborn.”

Renjun snorted. “He’ll be very pleased to hear that. If, you know,” he added, “he could speak and understand a human language.”

“Do you think you could teach him? No, that’s crazy talk, right?”

“Cats can probably read minds. It’s how they can sense fear.”

Donghyuck thought to the week before, when he had invited himself over to Renjun’s, and Jwi had stared unnervingly at the dark corners under Renjun’s lofted bed. “Do you think cats can see ghosts? Who do you think is living in your room?” he asked, mostly to tease Renjun. 

This was a huge mistake, as Renjun punched him hard on the shoulder. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he warned, bristling in a way that was reminiscent of Jwi.

“Definitely a ghost,” Donghyuck had concluded.

Renjun punched him again in the same spot and Donghyuck yelped.

“I can see that you are possessed by the spirit of a heavyweight champion,” he diagnosed. “I don’t think they know that they’re inhabiting the body of a featherweight, though. I don’t have any experience with exorcisms, but I’ll try just for you, Injun.”

“Now you’re just pulling my leg. Exorcisms aren’t real,” Renjun said.

“Neither are ghosts,” countered Donghyuck. “And, while we’re at it, aliens probably don’t exist, either.”

He scowled, though Donghyuck could tell that he couldn’t successfully hide his smile. “I’ll find an alien for the midterm when we have to chart the planets.”

“Great. I’m looking forward to it,” Donghyuck had said. 

But the truth was that he had almost forgotten about their little argument until the week before their midterm project was due. Renjun had shown up at Donghyuck’s house on a Saturday nearing midnight, a school lab-issued telescope tucked under one arm, Jwi hissing and clawing and scowling under the other, bundled up in a yellow hoodie and a black padded parka.

“It’s time,” he informed Donghyuck gravely.

Donghyuck, who had been in bed but not in the slightest bit tired, was a little unsure of what time it exactly was. He chose to squint at Jwi. “Time to, like…” He made a vague hand motion. “Fight Jwi on my roof?”

Jwi hissed at him again in a stunning display of attempting cross-species communication.

Renjun raised his eyes heavenward. “I wish,” he muttered. Jwi wriggled harder under his arm, but he didn’t let go. “Our project is due on Monday, and Mars is most visible tonight. Isn’t that right, Jwi?” he cooed to the cat, but Jwi wasn’t having any of it.

“ _Yaaaaow_ ,” he garbled.

“Sounds like a yes to me,” interpreted Donghyuck. He opened his front door wider to accommodate Renjun, the telescope, and the cat. “You know, most people come with prior notice.”

“Uh-huh,” said Renjun, already barreling up the stairs toward Donghyuck’s room.

“ _Mrrr_ ,” Jwi agreed.

“Great,” said Donghyuck, slinking into his room. “Love it when you and your cat concur.” 

He propped open his window and helped Renjun gain his footing on the trellis that ran up the side of the house. Renjun scrambled up with little difficulty, so Donghyuck tossed him the telescope and a spare fleece blanket. He had brushed the blanket with a bouquet of dried feverfew to fortify warmth. Jwi, who was a cat and therefore could probably traverse dimensions, somehow made it up before Donghyuck could, even though he hadn’t noticed the cat actually climb up.

The moon cast a bright, pale light on them, and the air was crisp but unseasonably warm. Donghyuck took the opportunity to cuddle up to Renjun in the blanket anyway. Renjun made a disgruntled face like he couldn’t stand it, but Donghyuck knew he thought otherwise.

“What are we looking for again?”

“Mars,” answered Renjun plainly.

“Fitting. That’s your ruling planet,” Donghyuck noted sagely.

Renjun rolled his eyes good-naturedly and began to set up the telescope. It was nice having Renjun as a friend but also more importantly as a seat partner. Donghyuck was under the impression that not only was Renjun a total nerd about aliens, he also seemed to know everything about everything when it came to observing the visible night sky. He had asked him where he learned it all once before, but Renjun had clammed up and started stammering, so Donghyuck never bothered asking him again. It was probably too nerdy even for Renjun’s standards.

They settled in eventually, taking turns to squint through the telescope and jot down coordinates, the amiable silence punctuated by Jwi’s snores. Things had been going well—maybe too well. They had been on track to finish before 1:00am when a night fog started rolling in, propagating until the sky was overcast and the stars were no longer visible.

“Can’t you do something about this?” Renjun asked.

Donghyuck thought to the time he tried to control the rain. “I’m not a weather witch,” he replied rather sullenly.

Renjun worried at his lip. “Well, try blowing the clouds away or something,” he joked, then, embarrassed, ducked down his head to pet Jwi, purring away in his lap.

Donghyuck couldn’t recall anything meant for cloudy days in the _Manual for Modern Witches_ but he decided that it couldn’t hurt to try. After all, that was what magic was all about—it was not so much the spells and herbs themselves but the trust in them.

He took a deep breath, believed, and blew towards the sky.

Nothing happened for a moment, and Donghyuck could feel the deep-set mortification settling in his bones. But before he could turn around and accost Renjun, the fog slowly began to part, as if by magic, and the stars peaked through stronger and stronger—stronger than before the fog—until they bathed them both in light.

Stunned, Donghyuck spun around and thrust his hand at the sky, gesturing at the empty air. “Am I a freakin’ magical genius? Injun, you saw that, right?”

“Right, I saw it,” replied Renjun, but was distracted by something below Donghyuck’s chin. Renjun’s gaze flickered up from Donghyuck's neck and trace the plane of his left cheek, tracing his beauty marks, and Renjun breathed, a revelation, “Oh. You have Ursa Minor on your skin.”

Their gazes caught each other’s then and the air crackled tense, electric, and Donghyuck couldn’t look away from Renjun’s dark, warm eyes, didn’t stop Renjun when he gravitated closer and lifted a soft, tender hand and hovered above his freckles.

But Renjun didn’t touch him. Instead, he pulled away his hand like pulling away from a burn, and the atmosphere shattered.

“Sorry,” they had both said at the same time. Donghyuck grinned lopsidedly at him, waving a hand, but couldn’t help but feel like _he_ was the one who was burned.

 

*

 

Renjun had apologized again the next day over text, something about being really obsessed with space which Donghyuck believed, but he didn’t quite believe that Renjun was sorry. _Donghyuck_ sure wasn’t, but wasn’t quite sure how to bring it up casually that wasn’t `HEY U WANNA MAKE OUT SOMETIME???`

The more he fretted, the more his magic fettered. Donghyuck could no longer perform even the simplest chakra realignment in the weeks that followed. Their midterm project might have been a success and their calculations were very precise, but even the joy of acing a science elective was short-lived. 

Donghyuck performed the same good luck charm as he did with Renjun’s meadowsweet right before a chem test and bombed. Though magic wasn’t always resolute, Donghyuck counted it as strike one. Strike two was when he brewed his failsafe echinacea and tulsi tea but got sick as a dog anyway, and Donghyuck had to miss senior skip day since he was sequestered at home as a health hazard. Jeno had argued that he was participating by not going to class, but there was a difference in skipping school because one _wanted_ to and skipping school because one was too busy coughing up a lung.

Strike three, though, happened after Jeno got his driver’s license and the two of them went on a drive to celebrate. More accurately, Donghyuck had demanded Jeno to drive him around after being quarantined for almost an entire week. Jaemin couldn’t join because he had fallen victim to Donghyuck’s germs and Renjun, who had been uncharacteristically flighty after their midterm, was nowhere to be found—hard to do, considering they lived next to each other, but he somehow pulled it off.

It had been storming hard that morning and had just stopped when Jeno pulled up in the family mom van.

“I can’t get in this, Jeno,” Donghyuck said, sniffling away the remnants of his cold. “It’ll ruin my street cred.”

“We live in a suburb, Typhoid Mary,” was all Jeno had to say about that.

Donghyuck reluctantly got in but had to admit that the ample amount of leg room _was_ convenient.

They drove around the town they’d grown up in and reminisced until the fog bloomed thick and, fresh out of driver’s ed, pounded over the head about exercising caution with headlights in foggy weather, Jeno began to get nervous. 

Donghyuck thought to the night of stargazing with Renjun and the magic he had somehow unknowingly executed and said, “Wait, pull over here. I’ll handle this.”

Jeno stopped the car, pulling up near a sidewalk in one of the fancier neighborhoods, and Donghyuck hopped out of the car. He took a deep breath, believed, and blew towards the sky.

Nothing happened. Donghyuck waited a moment more, hoping that the fog would take a moment like it did last time, but nothing _resolutely_ happened. Donghyuck gingerly got back into the car, limbs like stones.

Jeno furrowed his eyebrows at him. “Uh,” he said delicately. “Are you okay, Hyuck? Do you feel feverish or something?”

Donghyuck didn’t answer, fighting past the embarrassment of failure, much too deep in thought. What was different this time? Was it because he was sick? No, magic didn’t work like that, did it? The breaths in and out were the same as it was before, and so was the belief, if not stronger. Maybe he needed to channel his magic through something. Maybe it was because the spell only worked at night. Was Mars in charge of fog or something?

And that’s when Donghyuck knew.

  
*

 

`meet me on the rooftop at midnight`, he had texted Renjun as soon as he had gotten home. In hindsight, it was probably a somewhat ominous message to receive out of context, but Renjun had just texted back `ok!`, so Donghyuck thought that it was probably fine.

Night fell and so did the temperatures, but Donghyuck didn’t bother with a warming spell as he made the climb up to the roof, though he did take two extra blankets with him. Only a few minutes passed before he heard the telltale sound of Renjun carefully scaling up the trellis like a knockoff Spiderman, as well as the light scratching that was probably Jwi scrambling up after him.

Renjun smiled shyly at him when their eyes met. “Is the gig up?” he whispered as Donghyuck wordlessly handed him a blanket. “When did you realize?”

“Earlier today,” Donghyuck admitted. “Just—” He looked up at the stars to regroup, then back at Renjun. “When were you going to tell me? Were you ever going to?”

Renjun fiddled with the blanket, and Jwi brushed against his legs comfortingly. “There wasn’t exactly a good time, Hyuck. It’s not something you can just straight up tell someone. I mean,” he added hastily, “I know you’re the type of person to be open about that kind of thing, but no one’s ever believed me before.” He ducked his head, embarrassed. “But now you know. Thanks for being so understanding. I knew you would be. I should’ve trusted you sooner.”

Donghyuck sighed. “Of course you can trust me, Injun. I think it’s really cool.”

Renjun seemed to have expected him to say something else. “You think it’s really cool—”

“That you’re an alien,” Donghyuck finished for him at the exact same time Renjun continued with his sentence: “That I’m a witch?”

Donghyuck blinked. “You—you’re what?”

Renjun paled. “Uh,” was all he said.

“ _Mrrrr_ ,” said Jisung helpfully.

“You’re not an alien? From Mars?” Donghyuck yelped. “Why not?”

“What do you mean why not? You can’t just ask people why they’re not from Mars!” said Renjun indignantly.

Donghyuck sputtered. “But—but I thought—with the fog, and you being so obsessed and good at space—and all your alien talk! Like, you know, E.T. phone home—and that first day of astrology! You just didn’t want me to find out you were an alien. That’s why you got all weird about it.” He pointed at Jisung, who seemed even more smug than usual. “And Jwi was, like, your alien spaceship or something.”

“How can my cat be a spaceship?” Renjun questioned. “That makes no sense at all.”

“How am I supposed to know? I’m not an alien!”

“Neither am I!” said Renjun.

Donghyuck threw his hands up in frustration. “Then explain!”

Renjun huffed and picked up Jwi, who curled up instantly in his arms. “Like I said, I’m a witch.” Donghyuck opened his mouth to argue, but Renjun continued, “So are you, in your own way, but it’s a little different. I’m an actual witch. And Jwi is my familiar, not a spaceship. He’s the freaking worst.” Jwi yowled in agreement. “He appeared to me when I turned thirteen—that’s the age when all familiars present themselves to their witches.” He paused. “Thirteen is traditionally the witching hour, by the way.”

“I knew that already,” Donghyuck said, then gestured to the sky. “Then what about all this star stuff?”

He laughed, and it dispelled the tension. “You probably know that witches derive their magic from different channels. Like herbs and crystals and things,” he said, though it made Donghyuck feel like a little bit like a fraud. “My magic works better at night under the stars. Most witches’s do, but I just really like the constellations.”

Donghyuck didn’t miss the way Renjun’s eyes flickered down to his freckles, the ones that comprised the Little Dipper.

“And the aliens?” Donghyuck prompted, though he was no longer indignant.

“They’re real, okay?” Renjun insisted. Jwi trilled excitedly in agreement. “Isn’t it so selfish to think that we’re the only ones out here when there are, like, probably an infinite amount of universes where life could’ve taken place—life that we probably can’t even comprehend, much less pick up with our primitive telescopes and technology—”

“Stop, stop, forget I asked,” said Donghyuck, but privately, he thought the way Renjun went off about aliens with unparalleled passion was amusing. Everything Renjun had said made sense, but it didn’t stop him from challenging him. “Prove that you’re actually a witch, then.”

Renjun frowned. “You mean, like, if I sink to the bottom of a lake and drown, I’m innocent, and if I float, I get burned at the stake?”

“No, you idiot,” Donghyuck said, smiling fondly. “Just do some magic or something.”

Renjun rolled his eyes and pointed at the blanket Donghyuck had wrapped around his shoulders. “I hope you catch on fire,” Donghyuck thought he heard Renjun mutter, but it could’ve just been the wind. The blanket bloomed with warmth that tinged him from head to toe, as gentle as a warm hug, like Renjun’s smile when he had taken the bouquet of meadowsweet into his arms, like his gaze when he had seen the constellation on Donghyuck’s neck for the first time.

Donghyuck was fully aware that cost-benefit analysis had never been his strong suit, but who would he be without taking a few un-calculated risks every once in a while?

“I still don’t believe you,” he teased. “Maybe it was just a fluke.”

Renjun laughed and set down Jwi, who scampered away to do whatever cats—familiars—did. “How else am I supposed to prove to you that I can do magic?”

“I can think of something,” Donghyuck said and stepped closer, so close that their noses nearly brushed. Renjun mirrored him, stepping in even closer, and trailed a finger tenderly down the stars that dotted Donghyuck’s face, and somewhere between midnight and the witching hour, their lips met. Kissing Renjun felt like magic was blooming all around them—their mouths, the air crackling around them, Donghyuck’s lungs. 

When they slowly, carefully disentangled themselves from each other, Donghyuck happened to look up at the stars and realized that he had never seen stars burning this bright. Leaning back in for another kiss, he thought distantly while memorizing the touch of Renjun’s soft lips, what a relief it was that magic was real after all. The stars lit them both aglow.


End file.
